monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Petulant 0bama wants to start another shooting war, he's dangerous!

Will anything good come of this? Non withstanding that the CIA has been involved in hijacking other countries elections for decades and still I'm sure is involved in shady dealings, what possible good can this do? Do we think that Russia will back off if we sabotage them? Perhaps if that was the case, then a case could be made within their own never-never world that this is appropriate..

Major irony here that the idea of Trump wanting to better relations between the US and Russia is worthy. What I think isn't worthy is what I perceive as Trump's motivations behind this 'warming'..

Will anything good come of 0bama's desperate actions?

I agree about the likely normal silence of Intel Agencies on such matters, and that the President himself, and some appointees, have themselves declared that this was a Russian caper, as indeed it might have been.

However, my opinion about the pervasive substitute of political as opposed to professional and legal factors so evedent throught this Administration, from its beginning eight years ago, gives me pause. The contrast between the sudden and uncharacteristic Presidential sound and fury about the Russians in this case, unaccompanied as it by any confirming detail, and the corresponsing silence with respect to the substance of the information leaked as a result makes me even suspicious ... indeed it pegs my phonyometer.

Obama also told us Clinton broke no law or regulation on the e-mail matter, even after the State Dept IG confirmed the presence of Top Secret material in some of her e mails, and despite the fact that an ongoing FBI investigation had not yet reported out. His Attorney General met with Bill Clinton in an obviously prearranged "accidental" meeting on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport ( Lynch was on a flight from Washington to Aspen CO. and Phoenix is about 800 miles off the great circle route to her destination). Only the action of a disgruntled FBI officer in their Phoeniz office, who was forewarned of this "accidental" meeting, to alert a friend in the media allowed any reporting of this meeting to occur. The AG reported that they discussed family matters and their respective grandkids. Immediately afterwards a long delayed FBI interview with Hillary was hastily scheduled and completed over the weekend, and Covey's infamous whitewash followed a couple of days later. Hmm.....

In short there appears to have been extensive illicit activity on the part of both the President and his direct appointees on matters relating to the election, and , in the face of that, I am not willing to merely accept the President's prima facie assurances in thius instance without some backup. It appears many others share that view as well.

Evidently our esteemed President will, as he leaves the White House, release a statement that will no doubt be included in the book he or his sycophants writes about the subject.

I think using your analogy I can show you why it matters.

Take a team like the Detroit Lions or the Miami Dolphins. Those teams made the playoffs this year. Those teams won many games even when the other teams might have gotten more yards. In the long run though, both those teams have problems that had best be addressed because as the playoffs progress they aren't likely to win.

It's not so much what we think we saw that worries me. Secrecy is the bane of all governments and we know espionage is the theme. From my POV, they've done a satisfactory job in keeping us safe after 9/11. I hope they can maintain that viligance in the future.

Thank you, GWB.

I don't see any "propaganda initiative" here on the part of Trump at all. Where is it? I'll readily agree he is making good use of the leaked information for his purposes, in a contentious aftermath to the election in which the Democrats appear to be only very slowly emerging from a serious state of denial. He is also actively denigrating, what appears to be, a Presidential effort to change the subject and divert it to a active outraged reaction against this affront by Russia ( something that is very unusual for him in view of his silence and inaction following other far more threatening Russian actions over the last few years).

It appears to me that most of the Propaganda here is coming from our President.

The propaganda initiative is being run by 0bama, and his minions.
Do not trust them.

Yes. That's from prior to the election.

It depends on what you mean by a satisfactory job. Chinese and Russian hacking of government and business files has been very extensive and continuous for the last decade. In just the past couple of years they have hacked the complete file of personnel security clearance data among other things, among other things. Oddly Obama made no comment whatever about that.

To a large degree Trump's much maligned recent statement about the inherent risk of any data stored on a web-connected computer or server is indeed accurate. Oddly much of the criticism of him for this statement also came from the same folks who are in a tizzy about the "Russian hacking of the election process " .

The fact is the only hacking of that process that has yet come to light involved the efforts by Hillary's campaign & the DNC to torpedo Bernie's primary campaign and that of these two and some media outlets to give Hilary advance word on TV debate questions.

I'm going to add a new and exciting feature to our little community blog here.

This new feature might best be described as, "OK, it is the case that the most powerful nation on earth with a whole bunch of nukes and 300,000,000 humans on board is under the captainship of the bastard child of PT Barnum, Jesse Ventura and Vince "Violent Vaginas" Lombardi but all of that notwithstanding, this uniquely American thing is pretty damn cool"

The feature will be open to each contributor (or sub-contributor in certain cases) so feel free to point your finger to something that meets our new feature's standards and intent. Those who contribute below these entirely reasonable criteria will be taken out back and strangled with a foreign flag. By someone who does not speak English and is swarthy of feature.

Maximum - one per day. Minimum - one per week.

I'll begin, shall I. (no need for the interrogative mark there)
Dr John, the Neville Brothers, Al Hirt, Indians and New Orleans. OK to turn it loudish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdvzfeIKHTE

Cool song!

Ain't it ever. And that from which it emerges is angel stuff.

What will China do by hacking into our computers? We can enforce sanctions against China. Their economy is already in big trouble. They certainly can't win any war against the US and our allies. SAC/USAF, Navy, ballistic missiles, and the military of all our allies. All we need to do is bomb Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and a few other cities.
China needs to bomb San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, a few bases in Texas, Berlin, London, Lisbon, Marrakech, Sydney, a couple of places in Alaska, ....... etc. etc. etc.

By then, China will be wiped off the map. It will be MAD.

Well, this has been interesting. I had no idea so many members were so well informed about Russia, China, North Korea and of course the United States. You can tell can't you, on how steeped in language, culture and history these members are? Why they practically have their finger on the pulse of Vlad Putin.

And of course, Russia really really wants to be our platonic buddy. We can go hunt terrorists together, we can trust them. Julian 'fu@kface' Assange trusts the Russians, and Trump trusts Julie. And ok, the Russians and the Chinese have been hacking American companies, the Military, Social Security and are heavily involved in massive identity theft, but that's our fault for not being more vigilant.

OK, the Russians annexed Crimea, the Chinese are building islands and airstrips near international shipping lanes, but pfft. The ocean is really really really big. Of course, the Russians don't have designs on any other territories, and even if they did, we have a massive well equipped intelligence system that will detect any threats to the people of the United States. Well, maybe right now, but you might have to kiss that goodbye on January 20th 2017.

Appropriate for the current president and times..Dialed up courtesy of JDM and his magical musical magicians..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4

I saw them perform this live. I was on board a chemical whose designation I don't recall. It was a mostly agreeable experience.

Fake News Sampler

The French website La Seine du Merde has revealed insider information on the American President Not Waiting. Noted gypsy medium Madame Fifi du Barge has just attested before witnesses that she has been close enough to Donald Trump to read his aura and peer at his soul. "His aura", she said, "is the color of an ill water buffalo's ejaculate and his soul", she continued, "is the shape of a weasel'.

Please like this and link it to your friends on Facebook.

Are you really trying to insist that no modern day president has left the office richer than when he came into office? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but what was Obama's net worth prior to his 2004 DNC debut when he was just an IL state senator?